Duilding block and wall construction



1 June 20, 1933.

D. D. WHITACRE BUILDING BLOCK AND WALL CONSTRUCTION Filed Jan. 51, 1929Patented June 23, 1933 DONALD D. WHITACRE, OF WAYNESB'URG, OHIO BUILDINGBLOCK AND W'ALL CONSTRUCTION Application filed January 31, 1929.

This invention relates to structural building ile and wall construction,and more particularly to back-up tile blocks which, with appropriateheader and stretcher courses of brick, form a composite brick and tileWall.

I am familiar with the back-up tile known as Perfection blocks whichhave been very extensively used and are described andclaimed in lteissuePatent No. 1'. ,137, Novemher 20, 1928, of whlch the originalPatent No.

1,456,373 issued May 22nd, 1923 on the invention of John Eisenniann. Myinvention constitutes a departure from the Eisenmann invent-ion andpossesses novel features having numerous advantages of which economy inmaterial, labor and structural design is not the least.

It is among the objects of my invention to provide a back-up tile blockand a composite brick and tile wall, which is lighter per square foot ofwall surface than those heretofore used having the same strength andother comparable advantages. Another object is to N provide a blockwhich, when set in a composite brick and tile wall, eliminates asubstantial portion of the mortar joints in the Wall, and therebygreatly adds to the imperviousness of the wall to the passage ofmoisture. M Another object is to provide a back-up tile U withhorizontally extending voids which, when set in the wall, has a verticaldimension substantially equal to six courses of brick. A further objectis to provide back-up tile having a horizontal length substantiallyequal to the length of a brick and a vertical height substantially equalto twice the length of a brick. Another object is to provide a back-uptile of size, shape and weight that can be readily handled and which hasa relatively light weight per square foot of wall surface to facilitatethe speed with which the wall may be built.

Other objects will appear from the following description of a preferredform of my invention, reference being had to the accompanying drawing.The essential characteristics are summarized in the claims.

the drawing, F i g. 1 is a partial vertical section of a wall.constructed according to my invention; and Fig. 2 further illustrates mySer al No. 336,581.

novel back-up block while Figure 3 is a showing of a prior artconstruction.

Referring to the drawing, a wall built according to my inventioncomprises preferably five courses of stretcher brick 1 arranged betweencourses of header brick 2, which. is known as the usual six course bond.Bonded between the inner ends of the header brick are back-up tile 3having their voids extending horizontally and having half course offsetson both their upper and lower surfaces adjacentthe inner ends of theheader brick. The blocks 3 are spaced from each other by mortar beds 4,which beds substantially bisect rthe header course of brick. There arethus no continuous mortar beds extending through the wall and the onlymortar bed in the tile part of the wall are the narrow beds 4, which ina 12 wall as illustrated, are only about 4 wide, or equal to about thewidth of a brick.

The back-up tile 3 have a length a measurable in the direction of theirvoids or in the direction of extrusion of the blocks and have a maximumvertical height Z) measurable at right angles to the direction of thevoids. As mentioned above, the height I) is substantially equal to twicethe length a1 and the length a is cut to equal the length of a brick. Inpractice, I prefer that the dimension 5 equal 2a plus the thickness of amortar joint, so that two of the blocks 3 may be end-set to have thesame vertical displacement as one of the blocks when side-set, as shown.

Referring to Fig. 2, the block 3 is shown to have one horizontal web 5jointing the vertical shells of the block in the mid-portion thereof.Contrasted with this, are shown two prior art blocks P spaced apart by amortar joint 6 lying between adjacent shells 7 and 8. The two blocks P,when. placed in a wall, have the same vertical displacement as myback-up block 3 and it is to be noted that with my block and system ofconstruction, I have eliminated the mortar joint 6,th-ereby saving thecost of mortar, the cost of spreading the mortar, and the weight of themortar in the wall. The elimination of this mortar joint which, in a 12wall, is about 8" wide, reduces the mortar in the tile part of the Wallby about 67%. It will also be appreciated that the elimination of thismortar joint substantially doubles the imperviousness of the wall to thepassage of moisture.

It will also appear from Fig. 2 that the block 8 having a horizontal web5, is substantially as strong as the two blocks P, and that the mass ofthe block 8 is less than the combined masses of the two blocks P byreason of the elimination of substantially all of one of the shells 7 or8. Thus a wall built of my back-up tile is lighter than a wall built ofother kinds of tile, by reason of the elimination of the equivalent ofone of the horizontal shells of the old type of tile and the largemortar bed, mentioned above.

By extruding the block 3 with a dimension measurable at right angles tothe voids substantially equal to six courses of brick, I am enabled toside-set the blocks, thereby eliminating the circulation of air in thetile part of the wall and maintain a high insulating value for the wall.The blocks 3 have a surface dimension approximately 8 16,

which is substantially 33% greater than the surface dimension of theprior art, so that about one-fourth less blocks are required in a givenwall, with the consequent saving of time and labor in laying the wall.

There follows from the advantages enumerated above, a wall constructedaccording to my invention weighs less than walls heretofore constructed,and that the reduced weight of the wall reflects a saving in the rest ofthe structure of the building, particularly in the mass of steel in theframe and, the. size and strength of the footings. V

WVhile modifications within the scope of my invention may occur to thoseskilled in the art, and while I have illustrated and described apreferred form thereof, I do not care to be limited in the scope of mypatent, other than by the claims appended hereto.

I claim: I

1. A composite brick and tile wall comprising a brick facing part with aplurality of stretcher courses between header courses of brick, a tileback-up part with single courses of hollow tile blocks disposedgenerally between the inner ends of header brick, each of said back-upblocks being side-set and having offsets formed in its upper and lowershells equal to half the thickness of a course of brick for receivingthe inner end of the header brick in said oifsets, vertically adjacentpairs of said blocks bonding with and overlying the inner ends of headerbricks and vertically adjacent courses of header bricks bonding with andoverlying the inner portions of said back-up blocks.

2. A composite brick and tile wall comprising a brick facing part havinga plurality of stretcher courses between header courses, a tile back-uppart comprising side-set blocks with offsets in their upper and lowershells for receiving the inner ends of the header bricks, the offsetbeing equal in depth to half a course of brick, said tile blocks beingspaced from each other by a mortar bed which bisects the header courses,each tile block being bond- DONALD D. VVI-IITACRE.

